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Editorial: InP Startup Qusion Forges Ahead
... An especially interesting InP startup called Qusion Technologies, headquartered in North Brunswick, New Jersey USA, has made that all important leap toward manufacturing viability by formally opening their brand new fab facility which encompasses 8,000 square feet including a 3,000 square foot class 1000 clean room and a 400...
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GM/Hughes' DirectTV Purchased by EchoStar for $26.8 BillionNovember 1, 2001...DirectTV, which many, many years ago began as a Hughes venture full of hope
for compound semi satellite and ground receiver device providers, has been purchased
by EchoStar Communications. General Motors has signed a definitive agreement
to sell its satellite TV company, Hughes Electronics, which is best known for
its DirecTV brand, to what turns out to be the company's smaller rival. GM confirmed
over the weekend that EchoStar is paying $25.8 billion for the DirectTV business. Cree Reports 10X SiC Transistor Power Increases & MegaBright Green HB-LEDNovember 1, 2001...Cree had a busy week, reporting a whopping 10 times power increase for their
SiC transistors at the famed International Conference on Silicon Carbide and
Related Materials (ICSCRM) which was held in Tsukuba, Japan this week, and they
also introduced significant strides in the hardest blue spectrum HB-LED there
is to make, GREEN. Cree's SiC PiN power diode and SiC power MOSFET transistor
power levels have increased by more than a factor of ten over results obtained
a year ago as Cree scaled up the devices to much larger sizes than previously
demonstrated. The rectifier presented was a 10 kV SiC PiN diode with an area
of 9 mm2, having a current capability of 20 Amps, and a pulsed power capability
of 200 Amps. The SiC power MOSFET reported also was a large area device, with
a total chip area of 11 mm2. It demonstrated a high voltage rating of 2.4 kV,
with a current capability up to 10 Amps. The work on the high voltage rectifiers
was funded in part by the Air Force Research Laboratories, and the MOSFET research
was funded by DARPA and the Office of Naval Research. Press
release. Regarding their new green HB-LED, the new diode exhibits typical
brightness of 8mW, an increase to greater than two times the current UltraBright
505 green LED device brightness level. Cree is currently offering evaluation
and qualification samples, with volume production targeted for December 2001
and plans to offer the MegaBright green LED to customers at prices comparable
to its other MegaBright products. Green is especially important as the power
consumption for a green LED traffic signal is 8-12 watts versus 135-165 watts
for an incandescent bulb. As such, municipalities and other government organizations
are choosing to install LED traffic signals due to reduced energy consumption
resulting in lower electricity bills and reduced maintenance costs due to the
longer life cycle of LEDs. Press
release Agere Teams with Beijing's PTIC To Debut Extremely Light CellphonesNovember 1, 2001...Agere Systems of Allentown, Pennsylvania USA is providing its wireless platform
for use in a new smaller, lighter "Global System for Mobile (GSM) Communications"
cellular phone handsets to a key Beijing, China firm, noting that nearly 70
% of the world's cellphones are based on the GSM standard. The company in Beijing
is PTIC Capitel, which is using Agere's semiconductor and software system-level
platform in their new C6088 and C6288 models, which Capitel started selling
only a few weeks ago. These initial Agere models are approximately 30% smaller
than a business card and weigh only 66 grams (about 2.4 ounces) each, which
Agere characterizes as nearly 70% lighter than the mean weight of other wireless
handsets. Press release Conexant Introduces Very Small CDMA Power AmpNovember 1, 2001...Conexant has launched an entire new family of InGaP on GaAs power amplifier
modules for CDMA cellular handsets, personal communications system and wireless
local loop applications. Their new CX77105, CX77106 and CX77107 support IS95/CDMA2000
1xEV operations, as well as AMPS, Korean PCS and U.S. PCS, respectively and
each of the devices is offered in a mere 10-pin, 4mm x 4mm package, which Conexant
says is more than 50% smaller than any other 50-ohm matched CDMA module currently
offered. Press
release Aixtron to Open R&D Arm in Taiwan Jan 1stNovember 1, 2001...Aixtron has made the decision to base its new R&D-subsidiary in the Science
Based Industrial Park (SBIP) in Hsin-chu, Taiwan. The official opening is slated
for January 1, 2002 and the facility will be located at Fl. 6, De Tai Technology
Building, No. 8, Hsin-An Road. Mr. Bernd Wachtendorf, Aixtron's Manager of Technology
Transfer will be working closely with Dr. Christian Geng, General Manager Aixtron
Taiwan, Mr. Wachtendorf will coordinate the R&D projects with Aixtron's headquarters
in Aachen, Germany. Press
release November 1, 2001...Marconi Optical Components (MOC) today announced what they call "a radically
new wideband tunable laser," and named what it is, a "Digital Supermode
- Distributed Bragg Reflector (DS-DBR)" but what makes it so radical, turns
out to be the InP laser which Marconi is touting as "a breakthrough
in the development of tunable lasers." To those in working in the front
lines of compound semi development, the welcome application-oriented details
and descriptions in this particular press
release (soon to be posted on Marconi's site) warms the heart. For example...
"The operation of the front section reduces the tuning 'map' of the device
to effectively only two dimensions; a tuning current and a phase current. Second,
the output power and tuning uniformity of the device are also greatly improved,
eliminating the need for additional, costly, power hungry Semiconductor Optical
Amplifiers sections. Only a short grating at the front has to be excited so
there is very little induced optical loss when the Supermode is selected, or
when the device is tuned. "This is a world first in tunable transmitter
subsystems," said Carla Feldman, Marconi Optical Components' new, Executive
VP Sales and Marketing. "The new laser, combined with MOC's unique GaAs modulation
architecture, will provide telecoms manufacturers with unrivalled performance,
real-time reconfigurability and power uniformity. Business benefits will include
much simpler inventory management and the simplification of card level assembly
set-up and control." MOC will be shipping products incorporating the DS-DBR
laser in volume by mid 2002.
Kyma Appoints John Bumgarner VP Engr and Selects Advisory BoardNovember 1, 2001...Nitride substrate developer, Kyma Technologies Inc. of Research Triangle Park,
North Carolina USA, has appointed process engineering expert John Bumgarner
as the company's VP of Engineering. John has hails directly from Intel Corporation,
where he was a Process Integration Group Leader and brings extensive experience
developing processes, pilot production and ramping to high volume production
to the Kyma capability. (Press
release). Earlier this year, Kyma, which has received numerous SBIR contracts
to fund various phases of nitride research and closed on $2.6 million in venture
funding at the end of third quarter 2001, also added noteworthies to its Scientific
Advisory Board. The six appointees were led by Jerry Cuomo, Ph.D., Distinguished
Research Professor at North Carolina State's (NCSU) Department of Materials,
Science and Engineering. Serving with him are Ian Ferguson, formerly Director
of Contract Research for Emcore (now a professor with the School of Electrical
and Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology), Chris Clarke,
Manager for Compound Semiconductor Research Devices at Northrop Grumman STC
ESSS, Robert Kolbas, former Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering at NCSU, Jeffrey Glass, Co-Director of the Institute for the Integration
of Management and Engineering at Case Western University, and John Muth, Assistant
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NCSU. The advisory board
will actively advise the leading developer and supplier of nitride solutions
on future scientific strategy. Press
release Our news features are reported
by the CompoundSemi News staff writers.
For submissions or content suggestions, you can contact us using
editor -at - compoundsemi.com
For more information and to reserve promotion space contact
Info7 -at - compoundsemi.com
or call +1 (512) 257-9888 |
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The
McDonald Report
Commentary & Perspective...
InP Startup Qusion Forges AheadNovember 1, 2001...An especially interesting InP startup called Qusion Technologies, headquartered
in North Brunswick, New Jersey USA, has made that all important leap toward
manufacturing viability by formally opening their brand new fab facility which
encompasses 8,000 square feet including a 3,000 square foot class 1000 clean
room and a 400 square foot class 100 photolithographic cleanroom. Kudos to Qusion's
Matt Schurman, Director of Operations, for accomplishing the task in record
time. Prior to joining Qusion, Matt was head of the Apps Lab at Emcore. The
tie in with Emcore was further strengthened when Emcore's President and CEO,
Reuben Richards Jr. formally joined Qusion's Board of Directors a few weeks
ago, simultaneously with kicking off a drive to raise a second round of venture
capital funding. Qusion also added strength recently to its management staff
by hiring Timothy Brophy, Ph.D. as their new VP of Product Development. Prior
to joining Qusion Tim served as Director of Photonic Technology at Motorola.
Qusion also added Nisa
Khan, Ph.D. and Niloy Dutta, Ph.D. to their prestigious technology advisory
board. According to Qusion President, Phil Wallace (formerly a VP at Anadigics)
and the company's founder and Chairman of the Board, Fred Rappaport, the new
expansion will give Qusion the capability of further and more advanced product
development and will enable the company to develop partnership opportunities.
Qusion is concentrating solely on developing monolithically integrated InP based
optical components, creating integrated optical devices with what they feel
is tremendous precision that will reach unrivaled manufacturing yields for the
40 gig market. A first round of funding in February raised over $9 million and
the second round they are seeking should put them in excellent position among
the rapidly growing competitive InP sector. For background on InP technology,
we refer newcomers to CompoundSemi Online's InP 101 video, which features Matt
Schurman among the impressive litany of instructors (a recommend primer for
VC thinking of backing this exciting field). Details on Qusion's above news
items can be found on their website. World View of Mot's GaAs on SiNovember 1, 2001...A topic we covered
in early September, namely Motorola's GaAs on Silicon technology... and one
we continue to follow, is now getting especially interesting worldwide coverage.
For example, we found the following off the Asian Africa Intelligence Wire which
originated in The Star which is in Malaysia, and a Financial Times Information
Ltd affiliate. We call your attention to it to underscore how press releases
and compound semi news literally take on an afterlife that sometimes is stronger
and even more interesting that the original news. Excerpted from The Star
"Motorola has developed a new computer chip that will enable mobile phones
to work 35 times as fast as current models...The breakthrough was achieved by
scientists who created a semiconductor that combines the durability and economy
of silicon with the much better transmission qualities of crystal compounds
used in lasers and fibre optics. According to Motorola researchers, layered
gallium arsenide, a fast but brittle semiconductor, is fastened onto silicon
by way of a spongy middle layer, which binds the two and protects the coating
to create the super fast chip... 'It's a monumental change in the constraints
on the construction of semiconductor systems,' said Motorola chief technology
officer Dennis Roberson. 'We've opened the door on a whole new world.'
The new wafers will be licensed next year, but the company doesn't expect to
see products on the market for another two years. Motorola has applied for 270
patents for the materials and production process of the semiconductor, which
it says runs at 70 GHz instead of 2 GHz, the speed of the fastest processors
in PCs." See what we look like through truly fresh eyes? My favorite part
is "the spongy middle layer." If you have questions about the
solid state lighting and compound semiconductor industries or have news
or views to share, I'm Jo Ann McDonald, Editor of LIGHTimes and CompoundSemi News.
Feel free to contact me directly, anytime. 
My direct tel at the ranch is
+1-325-463-5345
From time to time Jo Ann may comment on companies in which she holds a
modest investment - be sure to read
her disclosure at some point in time... |
